Connie, welcome to the site. Sorry you needed to find us. I had rad/chemo then modified radical neck dissection. Had 35 lymph nodes removed along with about 10 oz. of surrounding tissue. I had 62 therapy sessions (that's all my insurance covered) and it did a lot to restore my motion and strength. It at least put me in the mode that I was able to return to yard work and stuff which has allowed me to continue strengthening the arm/shoulder. I can now do 20 pushups at once without too much problem.

My PT guy worked my shoulder with massage. No heat. And did the exercise thing as well. I didn't have a noose around the neck feeling, but I did (and do) had a very tight back/shoulder muscle. It is like a knot and requires very hard massage to help it. The massage hurt at first but a soft massage didn't even touch it. So my PT guy really bore down. My wife can't massage it as hard as it needs to be done, she isn't strong enough, so I basically work it out around the yard by digging with the shovel and I bought a chain saw recently and will start cutting down a couple of trees that need to go to keep building the muscles.

Hopefully, this will help your husband. Let him know that as Shelley mentioned, the rad is the worst part of treatment and though it seems easy now, it is cumulative and gets more difficult as time goes on. He can get through it, though. Does he have a peg (feeding tube)? I recommend them as I had a peg and still lost 25% of my body weight (50 pounds) during treatment and proper hydration and nutrition is critical to a good recovery. God bless.